Recently I wrote an article about Bernie Sanders’s track record. I discussed his
- impressive executive and legislative achievements
- adeptness at working with members of both parties in Congress to pass crucial and large-scale legislation
- leadership in advocating for progressive policies
- and dedication to the principle that war should be a last resort
— not to mention his seemingly boundless energy. I stated that these credentials and qualities make him well-suited to be our nominee and our president.
The purpose of that article wasn’t to “convert” anyone who prefers another candidate. As I mentioned in the article, I hope lots of folks will post articles about their favorite candidates’ achievements. It’s helpful to share these facts, so we can all become more familiar with and comfortable about the credentials of whoever wins the nomination.
In this article, I want to discuss the chief reason why I support Bernie Sanders in addition to his track record. And once again, my intention isn’t to convert anyone. It is to share something positive about someone who might become our nominee.
Not me, us
We clearly have many talented candidates vying for the nomination. In my view, one of the ways Bernie Sanders stands out is the emphasis he places on movement politics. Sanders would like to see — and is trying to help spur on — a robust progressive movement to rival this country’s conservative movement. (He calls it a “political revolution.”)
I believe movement politics is fundamental to winning hearts and minds on progressive issues. It’s a catalyst for progress. It’s a driver for major electoral, legislative, and judicial victories for our side — and a powerful inhibitor of such victories for conservatives. The organized, successful effort to fight the GOP’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act is one recent example.
Another is the successful effort by Amazon workers to focus attention on exploitation by America’s second-largest employer. Last year Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour, and CEO Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, admitted he had “listened to our critics.” Among them was Bernie Sanders, who Newsweek called “one of Amazon’s most vocal critics.” Sanders had continually needled Bezos on Twitter and authored the sarcastically titled “Stop BEZOS” bill (Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies). And the way Sanders discussed this victory for workers illustrates well that he’s not just a champion of a living wage policy, he’s also a champion of grassroots activists who are fighting for it. Huffington Post:
Sanders declined to take responsibility for the change, saying it was the workers who deserved credit for the raises.
“I think the workers have stood up and fought back,” he told HuffPost. “What we have done is call attention to the fact that it is a disgrace that the wealthiest person in this country and in this world are paying wages so low that workers are forced to go on food stamps and Medicaid.
Another prime example: All the money and fearmongering that conservatives could muster didn’t stop the Freedom to Marry movement, which, very deliberately, over a surprisingly short time, won so many hearts and minds, convinced so many people that a notion they once considered radical really isn’t.
In the past few years, we’ve been seeing this happening with the $15 minimum wage. And we are seeing it starting to happen with Medicare for All.
The bully pulpit and the multiplying force of the grassroots
Sanders thinks in order to implement the best progressive policies, it’s imperative for a president to use the bully pulpit, to take their progressive case directly to the people, to rouse and inspire them to organize and act as a multiplying force for that progressive case.
I believe such a president could help spur on a robust progressive movement — like Reagan helped to spur on the conservative movement. This could change the political landscape of our country for decades to come.
And that potential — along with a proven track record — is the key reason I’m enthusiastic that Bernie Sanders may become our nominee and our president.
Having a president of the United States who fully appreciates the value of grassroots progressive activism — and will unabashedly use the bully pulpit to encourage it — strikes me as a big plus and a big opportunity for our party, our country, and our planet.
Words in action
It’s very clear that Sanders is unabashed about using the bully pulpit — and we’ve seen recently how Sanders is using the campaign’s mailing list as a multiplying force for grassroots activism.
“Not only is [Bernie Sanders’s] campaign one of the few to have unionized workers, but he has also used his bully pulpit to pressure large employers without unionized workforces, like Amazon and McDonald's, to raise wages of employees.” —Pittsburgh City Paper, May 26, 2019
The City Paper article continues:
And now he is bringing that effort directly to Pittsburgh and the region’s most contentious labor-rights fight.
On May 25, the Sanders campaign sent out an email to its huge list of followers, asking them to join the striking UPMC workers at UPMC Montefiore in Oakland.
… On May 23, Sanders emailed campaign supporters and asked them join McDonald’s workers who were striking in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Tampa, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and several other cities. Those fast-food workers were asking for a $15 minimum wage and the right to form a labor union.
An invitation by Walmart workers for Sanders to speak out on their behalf at the shareholders meeting of America’s largest employer is another recent example of how the bully pulpit can be used to support grassroots activism:
As with the cleverly titled Stop BEZOS bill (Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies) which exhorted Amazon to do right by its workers, Sanders hasn’t been shy about using the bully pulpit in the case of Walmart: he’s also authored the Stop WALMART bill (Stop Welfare for Any Large Monopoly Amassing Revenue from Taxpayers).
The origins of the passion
It is not unusual to see Bernie Sanders walking with picketers and adding his voice to theirs. His passion for activism as a catalyst for change was instilled during the Civil Rights movement.
The Congress of Racial Equality was founded in Chicago in 1942, and 20 years later, Bernie Sanders was a 20-year-old student leader of the CORE chapter at the University of Chicago, which staged one of the first sit-ins in the North, calling attention to racial discrimination in university-owned apartment housing. The next year, Sanders was among protesters arrested for demonstrating against Chicago’s segregationist policy that made black children to go to class in makeshift trailers — so-called “Willis Wagons.” This demonstration took place a few months before the massive Chicago Public School Boycott. During the making of the documentary ’63 Boycott, the filmmakers discovered footage of Sanders being hauled off by police.
Of course the crucial story — described in rich detail in this 2016 Chicago Reader article — is not about a future presidential candidate being involved in a protest — it is that of the parents who organized to fight the system to protect their kids. In the summer of 1963, black parents were using large objects — and their own bodies — to block installation of Willis Wagons in a field in Englewood, Chicago. Sanders was among the CORE members who came to support the parents.
“[A]s many as 800 children were saved from spending two years in an educational trailer park, one with almost no facilities, under the rumble of freight trains.” —Chicago Reader
Sanders much prefers to focus on public policy issues — not on himself — but as a candidate for president, he has opened up about the major influences that shaped his political perspective. At his 2020 campaign kickoff rally in Chicago, Sanders recalled his experiences with his fellow CORE activists in Chicago and he spoke of his great admiration for activists in the South — “We were protesting. They were putting their lives on the line, and some were getting killed.”
The reason I tell you all of this is because my activities here in Chicago taught me a very important lesson. And that is that whether it is the struggle against racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or corporate greed, or environmental devastation, or war and militarism or religious bigotry — real change never takes place from the top on down. It always takes place from the bottom on up when people, at the grassroots level, stand up and fight back. That's a lesson I learned in Chicago, and a lesson I've never forgotten.